- French carrier group moves south of Suez ahead of conditional UK-French Hormuz mission
Source: ABC News
“France’s aircraft carrier strike group is moving south of the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea in preparation for a potential future mission as part of a French-British plan for the Strait of Hormuz, the French armed forces said Wednesday. The southward repositioning of the nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle and its escorts is the latest stage of a Middle East deployment first announced by French President Emmanuel Macron in a televised address on March 3, the day before Iran closed the strait. The move south of Suez puts France’s only carrier closer to the Persian Gulf chokepoint where a fifth of the world’s oil normally transits and where Iran has effectively halted commercial traffic since early March.” (05/06/26)
- SCOTUS Declines to Pause Order Holding Apple in Contempt in Epic Games Lawsuit
Source: US News & World Report
“The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Wednesday Apple’s request to temporarily block a judicial order that found the iPhone maker in violation of sweeping court-mandated changes to its lucrative App Store as part of an antitrust lawsuit by ‘Fortnite’ maker Epic Games. Justice Elena Kagan, on behalf of the court, declined to pause a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that deemed Apple in contempt in the Epic lawsuit contesting App Store fees. Apple had sought the delay to give it time to file a full Supreme Court appeal of the 9th Circuit decision. Apple and Epic have clashed for years over the rules governing Apple’s App Store. The contempt ruling and the scope of Apple’s court-ordered obligations are the latest issues in the dispute to reach the Supreme Court.” (05/06/26)
- Massive Alaska megatsunami was second largest ever recorded
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A massive ‘megatsunami’ wave created when part of an Alaskan mountain crumbled into the sea is the second tallest ever recorded – and a reminder of the risks posed by melting glaciers, say scientists. Last summer a giant wave swept through a remote fjord in southeast Alaska leaving destruction in its wake. The event went largely unreported at the time, but a new scientific analysis shows it was caused by a massive landslide. An incredible 64 million cubic metres of rock – the equivalent of 24 Great Pyramids – splashed into the water below. The sheer power of that amount of rock plunging into the fjord in under a minute created a gigantic wave almost 500 metres tall. Only the time it happened – in the early hours of the morning – prevented tourist cruise ships being caught up in the devastation, say the researchers.” (05/06/26)
- The Shocking Nature of Libertarianism
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance“Contrary to its misunderstanding and misrepresentation by Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and conservatives, libertarianism has nothing to do with greed, selfishness, one’s lifestyle, morality, vices, or religion. It is a political philosophy that deals with the proper role of violence in society. … The creed of libertarianism is nonaggression: freedom from aggression and violence against person and property as long as one respects the person and property of others. … Most Americans would claim to hold to the nonaggression principle on a personal level. … Yet most of these same people have no problem supporting government aggression against those who are not aggressing against the person or property of others, are participating in certain activities, or are engaging in prohibited commerce in order to effect changes in behavior, compel virtue, punish vice, or achieve some desired social end.” (05/06/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-shocking-nature-of-libertarianism/
- What “Never Again” Demands of Each of Us
Source: Mindset Shifts
by Barry Brownstein“What [Dr. Edith] Eger understood, and what makes her work so urgent now, is that Jew-hatred is never only about Jews. It is a symptom of a deeper moral disorder; the same disorder she spent her career treating in her patients and herself. When we dehumanize any group, we do not harm only them. We do something to ourselves. We coarsen the inner voice that Adam Smith called the impartial spectator. We silence the conscience that might otherwise call us back. The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers; it began in the minds of people who decided that some human beings do not belong to humanity. That decision is always available to us. So is the opposite one.” (05/06/26)
https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/what-never-again-demands-of-each
- The problem with independent bureaucracies running things
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall“It’s possible that modern slavery is indeed increasing. We tend to think that’s a result of the expansion of what slavery is meant to mean but perhaps that’s just us. There is though this problem of using independent bureaucracies to run all of these different things. Commissioners for this and that, commissions for the other and so on. … Say that you had a touch of the cynic in you. What would you expect a report from a bureaucracy to say about the issue that bureaucracy is meant to be dealing with? … The aim of a bureaucracy, as an organisation, is to continue to exist and to grow – to increase its budget. That’s it, that’s just what happens with this life form. Therefore every report from a bureaucracy is going to be well … yes … very difficult problem … growing all the time … give us more money.” ()5/06/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-problem-with-independent-bureaucracies-running-things
- Democrats’ fingerprints are all over the Spirit Airlines crime scene
Source: New York Post
by Rich Lowry“Regulators no longer have to worry that Spirit Airlines might upset the air-travel market by merging with the wrong competitor. The now-defunct airline made poor business decisions and had to cope with tough circumstances. But if its demise were an Agatha Christie mystery, the fingerprints of Joe Biden’s antitrust officials would be all over the crime scene. These zealots fought a proposed deal between JetBlue and Spirit, and congratulated themselves on a 2024 court victory that doomed Spirit to likely oblivion. This was wanton economic destruction masquerading as antitrust enforcement. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who never met an antitrust action she didn’t like, exemplifies the perversity.” (05/05/26)
- The real cost of the Iran War: $72 billion for the first 60 days
Source: Popular Information
by Stephen Semler“Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Acting Comptroller Jules Hurst told Congress last week that the Iran War had cost $25 billion through the first 60 days. The next day, CBS reported that officials familiar with the Pentagon’s internal assessments estimated the cost was actually closer to $50 billion — double the amount department leadership had just stated publicly. However, even the figure reported as the war’s ‘true cost’ is at least $22 billion too low. Popular Information conducted a cost estimate of the Iran War based on officials’ statements, military procurement and operations data, and reporting on deployments and armament use. Through 60 days, the US spent an estimated $71.8 billion on the Iran War, or $1.2 billion per day on average.” (05/06/26)
- The Man Behind the Tattoo
Source: The Bulwark
by Sarah Longwell“While debates rage online about the Democratic party needing to be more moderate or more progressive, Democratic primary voters are focused on a different set of priorities entirely. They want fighters who can win and seem like they care about average people struggling in this economy. It makes sense that Democratic voters are in the mood for a candidate like Platner, with his oyster-farmer aesthetic and ‘not a regular politician’ energy. But we were still left wondering how voters were processing Platner’s laundry list of personal baggage, from the much-discussed Totenkopf tattoo to the slew of bad Reddit posts. Here’s what they said …” (05/06/26)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-man-behind-the-tattoo-graham-platner-maine-democrat-focus-group
- The numbers don’t lie: The DNC is winning where it matters most
Source: The Hill
by Michael Kapp“Since Trump returned to office, Democrats have overperformed in 90 percent of competitive elections and hold a perfect 30–0 record in flipped state legislative seats. Republicans may dominate the cash-on-hand conversation in political media, but Democrats are investing resources into actual electoral gains. That disconnect underscores how fundraising comparisons are, at best, an incomplete measure of political strength. Importantly, many of these gains are happening in places national Democrats historically have ignored.” (05/06/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5864467-democratic-fundraising-media-misconception/mlite/
- Surveillance Tools Intended for Border Control Are Being Used Against Americans
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“It goes without saying that any tool or power government acquires for addressing some crisis of the moment will eventually—often, almost immediately—be deployed against the general public. So it is with border enforcement and the crackdown on immigrants. Surveillance technology ostensibly intended for the enforcement of laws regulating migration is being turned against Americans.” (05/06/26)
- Cost of California’s High-Speed Rail Goes Up Again
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kerry Jackson“It was supposed to cost $33 billion when voters approved the train in 2008. It will now cost at least $126 billion. It was also supposed to be carrying 65.5 million to 96.5 million intercity riders a year by 2030. Yet now 2040 is the date for ‘full service to start.’ Skeptics don’t believe we’ll ever see the train run with paying customers aboard.” (05/06/26)
https://fee.org/articles/cost-of-californias-high-speed-rail-goes-up-again/
- The Iraq War’s Disastrous Legacy Rears Its Head
Source: The American Conservative
by Murtaza Hussain“Over two decades after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, it is difficult to understand what the precise relationship is between Baghdad and Washington. Economic, political, and cultural ties between the two countries are weak—mostly reflecting in-built structural dependence by Iraqi institutions on the U.S. financial system—while a legacy of suspicion and hostility has outlived the war. This alienated relationship will be strange to those who remember the justifications for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which was depicted as another step in an unstoppable march of liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War, intended to benefit not just Iraqis but Americans themselves.” (05/06/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-iraq-wars-disastrous-legacy-rears-its-head/
- From Toleration to Religious Liberty
Source: Law & Liberty
by Tyler Mruczinski“John Adams’s evolution from mere toleration of Roman Catholicism to open support for religious liberty personifies a revolution in the American mind.” (05/06/26)
https://lawliberty.org/from-toleration-to-religious-liberty/
- The Political Orphanage, 05/06/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“The Non-Profit Industrial Complex.” (05/06/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/the-non-profit-industrial-complex
- Art, AI, Consciousness And Awakening
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“Caitlin and Tim discuss art, AI, consciousness, propaganda, spiritual awakening and more while Caitlin paints a portrait of Marco ‘the Gorey Gusano’ Rubio.” (05/06/26)